Judge rules rehab workers don't have to testify against Noelle Bush

Associated Press

Published Tuesday, October 01, 2002

ORLANDO (AP) -- A judge ruled Monday that staff members at the drug rehab center where Gov. Jeb Bush's daughter is receiving treatment do not have to answer police questions about a piece of crack allegedly found in her shoe.

If the drug treatment counselors were forced to give testimony, then "all patients who suffer relapses could be hauled out of treatment programs and into criminal courts on the whim of a state prosecutor or police officers," the judge wrote.

Assistant State Attorney Jeff Ashton said his office would appeal.

"If saying essentially to drug patients, 'Go ahead. You can't be prosecuted for using drugs at the center,' I wonder if that's valuable for their treatment?" Ashton said. "The court's decision says we can't even inquire about how a person got drugs."

Ashton made a similar argument to Perry earlier this month when he said that refusing to require the drug rehab staffers to cooperate with authorities would create "a situation in which a drug center is an island of absolute immunity for prosecution for drug crimes."

A transcript of the closed hearing was made public Monday at the request of the Orlando Sentinel.

The state attorney's office issued subpoenas for four staffers at the Center for Drug-Free Living in Orlando after police received a report from another patient on Sept. 9 that 25-year-old Noelle Bush had been found with cocaine in her shoe. Investigators also tried to depose one of the staffers.

Workers at the Center for Drug-Free Living refused to cooperate, citing privacy concerns. One staff member wrote a statement for officers but ripped it up after a supervisor intervened.

In his ruling, Perry said Florida's drug court program would be destroyed if patients could be taken by police from treatment centers and placed in criminal court for drug possession. Drug courts allow addicts to seek treatment under the supervision of a judge rather than being tried in criminal court.

The governor, attending a campaign forum in Orlando for the agriculture industry, said he was pleased with the decision because confidentiality is a fundamental part of treatment.

"Our drug court system is based on the fact that the road to recovery is a rocky one," Bush said. "If counselors are required to report every violation, then it makes treatment very difficult to work."

Drug treatment counselors elsewhere said only under rare circumstances would law enforcement be called in if a patient was found with drugs, and that it didn't appear that Noelle Bush, the president's niece, was getting special treatment from the center.

"We confiscate the drugs and dispose of them," said Kermit Dahlen, president and CEO of the Gordon Recovery Center in Sioux City, Iowa. "Law enforcement probably wouldn't be called in."

Other drug counselors said a ruling against the Orlando center would have had a chilling effect on people seeking treatment.

"It's set up to protect the confidentiality of the patients so they can be focused on treatment and not worried about what they say may get them in trouble," said Jim Aiello, vice president at Gateway Rehabilitation Center in Aliquippa, Pa.

Noelle Bush was put in a court-ordered rehabilitation program in February shortly after she was arrested at a pharmacy drive-through window for allegedly trying to buy the anti-anxiety drug Xanax with a fraudulent prescription.